Equilibrium

  Thumb Mountain appeared like an unimpressive hillock, near enough to touch. She could see Mount Kearsarge and Mount Osceola, their peaks easily discernible without binoculars. But believing in the fourth mountain, over one hundred miles away, required a profound faith she thought she’d lost until she heard her voice. “Mount Washington.”

  Gazing up into the cloudless sky, her eyes lost focus, and her eyelids fluttered shut. Three more times she tried keeping them open, and then the effort turned futile. Her lightweight jacket crackled in the breeze.

  Wind-garbled, Aidan’s voice touched her ears.

  Troy’s footfall thumped beside her. “There’s this wicked cute girl,” Troy said. “If I ever get up the nerve to talk to her—”

  “What’s her name?” Aidan asked. No way would Troy give a name. The last time Laura had heard directly from Troy, her son still thought girls had cooties.

  “Charlotte.”

  “So you haven’t talked to Charlotte yet?” Aidan said. “What’s the deal? If you like this girl, then don’t let the chance blow by or you’ll seriously regret it. There was this girl I liked in junior high, and I never got up the guts to talk to her. Found out years later she had this huge crush on me. I just never knew it.”

  Was that true? Laura couldn’t imagine Aidan lying, but any girl catching a glimpse of him would find her tongue twisting in her mouth like a salted pretzel.

  “Uh, I don’t know,” Troy said.

  “Does she take off whenever she sees you, kind of avoiding you?”

  “Yeah! And she’s really friendly. She talks to all the other guys during track.”

  “Man, Troy, that’s classic,” Aidan said. “She’s not shy. So why wouldn’t she talk to you, unless she’s all freaked about talking to you for the same reason you’re worried about talking to her?”

  Troy’s voice squeaked. “Ya think?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Thanks, dude!” Troy said, and Laura couldn’t help but grin like an idiot. Or a mom realizing her baby boy was growing into a fine young man.

  “Look who’s awake,” Aidan said.

  She scrambled to sitting.

  “Guess we can’t leave her here, Troy. Good idea though.”

  “I’m not at all concerned,” Laura said. Aidan had left the outside pocket of his pack unzipped. She snapped up the spilling contents and jumped to standing. “I’ve got your keys!” she said, and dangled them in front of Aidan’s face.

  Tactical error. Aidan closed his hand over hers and smiled into her face. When their eyes met, she fought the urge to raise a hand to his face and kiss him full on the mouth. The resistance dusted her fingers with perspiration.

  In her peripheral vision, Troy studied their playfulness, as if he were collecting data. Her son could certainly benefit from a man like Aidan. Unless she did something stupid like dating Aidan openly and their relationship crashed, making Troy the unintended victim.

  All the more reason to break it off tonight.

  Eight forty-five p.m., and Laura’s favorite means of distraction wasn’t working.

  After having phone-visited with Elle for thirty minutes and having spoken with Maggie for about ten, Laura promised herself she’d make it to the next book club meeting. For the first time in weeks, she’d be able to spend time with friends without worrying about Aidan-related fibs of omission. No more fear Maggie would read her madly in love aura or that Elle would take one look at her face and declare her lit with afterglow.

  Laura sat on her bed with her back against two well-plumped pillows, her knees bent, and the hardcover book club selection beside her. Each time she’d tried beginning the novel, her eyes would leave the page, and her thoughts would follow. Tonight, she was planning on stating her case to Aidan, and then bolting. What at first stung mightily would result in a smaller net pain.

  She hoped.

  She kept glancing at the window, willing the obnoxious rumble of Nick’s vehicle to roar through the screen, so she could begin the second half of her evening, the part she was dreading. Nick’s old wreck had become synonymous with the before-curfew return of her daughter, and Laura had grown fond of the rusty Monte Carlo and its driver. Almost.

  For now, she was keeping an open mind and an open door.

  Nick’s car rumbled into the driveway, and Laura peeked out her window. Leaving the engine running, Nick came around to the passenger side, and Darcy emerged from the car, only to disappear behind Nick’s body.

  Laura stepped away from the window. A few nights ago, Laura had once again asked Darcy whether they were having intercourse, and the way Darcy had held her gaze led Laura to actually believe her daughter’s denial. Given their intensity of courting, however, Laura wondered how much longer that statement would hold true.

  Laura recognized the telltale signs of a girl falling in love: the way Darcy had all of a sudden stopped making plans with her best friends, the way she hummed unconsciously under her breath, and the way she stared off in the middle of dinner, a piece of half-chewed food forgotten between her teeth until Troy gave her a prod. Even if Laura hadn’t discovered the unique method Darcy and Nick had devised to keep their literal connection open by staying on the phone through the night, she would’ve known by the unusual luminescence in her daughter’s face, a sheen she’d recently noticed in her own reflection.

  Soon that would end.

  Nick’s car door slammed, and his car roared from her driveway. The screen door smacked shut. Instead of remaining downstairs and eating straight from a carton of ice cream, Darcy’s usual post-date activity, her daughter trampled up the stairs to her bedroom. Laura took her daughter’s action tonight as synergy, a sign that ending her relationship with Aidan was meant to happen, even though the thought upended her stomach.

  Laura checked herself in the mirror. No hair fluffing tonight or formfitting clothing, but she didn’t want to leave Aidan with the image of her as a total hag. She wrangled her hair into a covered ponytail holder befitting the tied-back seriousness of the occasion. Laura had given Aidan a preview by stating they needed to talk, and before he’d thought to erect the classic male unreadable mask, she’d glimpsed a look to rival any horror movie actor.

  She stretched her calves, as though preparing for a sprint to a finish line she couldn’t imagine any joy in crossing. When she’d started the affair, she’d experienced first-time jitters. Nothing to compare with the task before her.

  She could envision breaking up with him, but she couldn’t imagine her life after their conversation. Somewhere in the course of her relationship with Aidan, folding into the mix along with the role of lover, he’d become one of her best friends.

  Partway through her kitchen, she glimpsed the door to Aidan’s apartment, wide open and waiting. She trudged into the studio and closed the door behind her.

  Aidan sat in the leather recliner, clutching his guitar in much the same way as her daughter hugged a throw pillow. He set the guitar aside and sent her a smile she’d come to believe was special order, for her eyes only. Then, seeming to remember her conversation preview, his mouth turned down. “Would you like something to drink?”

  She shook her head, unable to speak as she committed his eyes to memory.

  “Sit with me then,” he said, and patted his thigh.

  Instead, she perched on the chair arm. Her hand twitched with the memory of stroking his hair, touching his face, and forgetting about reality. She gripped the leather. “We can’t do this anymore.”

  “Why not?” he asked, an invitation for her to state her case concisely, instead of the crumbs she’d been dropping for days.

  Mustering all her debate skills, she gathered her thoughts, setting them in a black-and-white domino row she thought would click-clack to their inevitable breakup. “I’m in no position to date.” She answered his quizzical stare, the slight shaking of his head. “I’m the mother of two teenagers. They’re fine now, thank God they’re fine, but I can’t guarantee they won’t develop their father
’s disorder. I’m flattered you appreciate them, but pulling you into my life as anything but a friend was utterly selfish on my part. You’re a wonderful man, and you deserve more than what I can offer.”

  “Laura.” He touched her face, and she swallowed the tears clogging her throat. “So your family’s not perfect, but you’re perfect for me. You’re beautiful and talented and funny as hell, when you’re not worrying about every worst-case scenario. Why can’t you see yourself the way I see you? You have so much to offer.”

  “Parenting two teens isn’t the same as being a friend. You think you know what you’re getting yourself into, but you don’t.”

  “Let me decide.”

  “No. It’s not just you I’m concerned with. When you figure out what my life is really like, the long-term commitments, you could run like hell, and I can’t say I’d blame you. Thing is, by that time, it would be too late for me to save my kids from more loss.”

  “I don’t scare that easily. That’s what family’s about, but you already know that,” he said, and she couldn’t avoid the gaze that looked past all of her faults. “That’s why I love you.”

  Laura’s body flashed hot and cold, thrill and dread. A pin-sharp ringing pierced her ears. Every cell in her body wished she could do the wrong thing: grab her second chance at happiness while ruining Aidan’s first.

  She’d do the right thing because she loved him, too.

  “You’re so young,” she said. “You’re going to want children of your own one day, and I’ve no idea if I’d want any more.”

  “We’d decide together.”

  “There’s more.” She held her hand over her heart, and her pulse beat through her fingers, up her arm, and out through her lips. “There are things I haven’t told you.”

  “What sort of things?” he said, and beneath his question Laura heard, I’ve got it, his take charge, take over, take care phrase.

  She didn’t need to make him think she’d totally lost her grip. She didn’t need him to look at her that way, either, as though she were beautiful, no matter what. So she set out a chronicle of her near-miss panic attacks, night terrors, and wide-awake finding-Jack memories that plagued her, describing each scene as though she were recounting a secondhand experience.

  None of these symptoms of anxiety had surfaced since she and Aidan had started sleeping together. That fact wouldn’t serve her argument.

  Aidan nodded almost imperceptibly. He spoke in the pragmatic tone of a medical diagnosis. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.”

  “Delayed onset,” he added, when Laura opened her mouth to protest.

  “I wasn’t a soldier on a battle field,” she said. Her denial sprang up visions of chaos, human suffering, and bloody death. “Okay, maybe you’re right. But naming what I have doesn’t cure the condition.”

  She stood up, and the air temperature dropped, Aidan’s warmth slipping away from her. A chill hunched her shoulders, and she hugged her arms across her chest.

  “I’m releasing you from any obligation. You’re free,” she said, and her voice tripped on her jump-rope heartbeat.

  Aidan’s brows hunched, and his head tilted to one side, as though he were trying to decipher a crazy woman. “You don’t get to decide this one alone. We’re great together, and you know it. You just haven’t admitted it yet.”

  “You can’t stop me from breaking it off with you,” she said.

  “Listen to Laura is Laura’s house rule number two, right?” Aidan said.

  “Sure?”

  “The problem is you’re not making any sense,” he said, a cherry-picked insult.

  For the first time, she knew what Nick must’ve felt on the receiving end of Aidan’s lecture. For the first time, she knew what it felt like on the receiving end of Aidan’s disappointment.

  “Laura,” he said. His voice smoothed around the curved letters of her name, and the rest of the world fell away. He stood and rubbed the cold from her arms. In the blink of his eyes, she saw herself as he saw her, just a woman in love with a man.

  “Aidan’s house rule number one. I always win,” he said, and the image cut to black.

  Chapter 28

  Nine fifteen p.m., Mom sneaked downstairs to get busy with Lover Boy. Nine twenty, Darcy sneaked out her bedroom window and climbed down the fire escape. Her legs warbled beneath her. Her pulse pinched between her ribs. She started down the street, and then glanced back at Aidan’s apartment. The studio light glowed warm and bright, and she let herself imagine going to Mom with her Nick problem. She imagined Mom’s face, all alarm and concern. She imagined Mom wrapping her in her embrace. She imagined crying into the curve of her mother’s neck.

  Then she imagined everything going terribly nosecond-chances wrong.

  If she told Mom about Nick’s crazy-sick plan to kill his father, Mom would call the police. If the police went after Nick, no way he was going to jail.

  I got a bullet with my name on it.

  Darcy shivered in the cool dampness and willed her legs to move. Under the cover of a moonless night, her eyes adjusted so she could see the soft edges of lawns and houses, the irregular shapes of cars lining driveways. She dashed across the town’s street-lamp bright center, through the candy-on-her-tongue fragrance of blooming lilacs, the dark woodsy aroma of fresh mulch. She pumped her arms to power past the gleaming dark storefronts.

  Darcy darted down side streets and race-walked until she came to the familiar cape. Home to sleepovers and pillow fights. Home to Cam.

  Her breath rasped out before her, and she rang the bell. A dog barked in the distance. The Mathers’ minivan wasn’t parked in the driveway, but a television sounded from inside the house. Darcy peered through the glass top of the door in time to see Cam’s gangly legs trampling down the stairs from the second floor.

  He opened the door and blinked at her. “Darcy,” he said.

  “That’s me!” she sang out, wanting to make Cam grin. Instead, she started to cry.

  Cam glanced over his shoulder. He stepped onto the front stoop and went in for a hug. All it took for her to really lose it.

  Darcy slobbered with relief into the cotton of Cam’s black T-shirt and inhaled the slightly musty boy smell of her best friend forever. He’d gotten her out of trouble countless times. Last Halloween, Mom had suspected Darcy’s involvement in a town-wide egging, and he’d sworn she’d helped him take his two-year-old sister, Emily, trick-or-treating. When Darcy had gone skinny-dipping in the Carsons’ pool—the time she wasn’t caught—he’d claimed a dip at Stevie’s and a borrowed suit. And once, he’d let her copy off his algebra test because if she’d flunked, her mother would’ve killed her.

  “What’s the matter?” he said when she’d finally caught her breath.

  She wiped her cheeks with her hands and blinked at Cam through blurry eyes. “It’s Nick.” Her voice came out in a whimper.

  Cam considered her for a moment, gave her arms a pat, and took a step back. His mouth worked, as though he tasted Nick’s name and found it lacking. He shook his head, three slow side to side movements. “Sorry, Darce, but you’re better off without him. The kid’s serious messed-up bad news. Heard about him busting Jared’s windshield.”

  Nick had slammed his palms against Jared’s windshield right in front of her, but she hadn’t noticed the glass cracking. Had Nick?

  She stared at her usually gossip-hating friend. Two things became clear. Cam thought she and Nick had broken up, and he was glad.

  That would make it a lot more difficult to get Cam to help her figure a plan to save both Nick and his father.

  “I really need you,” Darcy said, and Cam turned to the sound of feet bounding down the stairs.

  Long thin legs, cutoff denim shorts. Smooth blond hair, purple barrette at one side. Heather came to the screen door, carrying Cam’s little sister against her hip. Curly-headed Emily rubbed her eyes. Her chubby hand opened and closed at Darcy.

  Darcy smiled and returned Emily’s toddler wave, missing the d
ays when Cam had needed both her and Heather to help babysit. Through the screen door, Darcy caught Heather’s gaze. For a second, Heather’s eyes seemed to register Darcy ’s tear-streaked face. Then, in the time it took for Darcy to think, Love you, Heather hardened her eyes and turned to Cam. “Em wants you to read Goodnight Moon.”

  “I’m in trouble,” Darcy blurted out. Details about Nick, the boy Heather hated, swelled in Darcy’s throat. The details proved Heather’s warning. Darcy didn’t really know Nick.

  But that didn’t stop her from loving him.

  “Breakup,” Cam supplied, when Darcy didn’t say anything.

  Darcy bit the inside of her cheek and gulped back tears.

  With a toss of her head, Heather flicked her hair from her eyes, a snooty move she’d perfected last summer. “Told you so,” Heather said to Cam. “Told you you’d hear from her when they broke up.”

  Darcy would’ve called Cam, would’ve stopped over sooner, but Heather had gotten to him first. She couldn’t compete with Cam’s crush on Heather. Besides, Heather had needed Cam more. Until now.

  “Bummer about Nick,” Cam said. He gave Darcy a halfhearted hug, a quarter-hearted smile, and slipped back into his house. Heather passed Emily to Cam, and the toddler waved bye-bye to Darcy. This time, her chubby palm faced inward.

  Darcy mimicked the toddler’s wave. Bye, cutie-pie Em. Bye, Cam and Heather.

  Heather started to close the door, but Darcy couldn’t let her. “You were right about what you told me,” Darcy said, and Heather froze in the doorway. “It is a big deal.” Darcy used a pronoun for “being gay” in case Heather hadn’t yet come out to Cam.

  Heather glanced over her shoulder at Cam. “Duh, he knows,” she said, and shut the door.

  Weeks ago, Heather had walked half a mile in the dark to tell Darcy she was gay and to ask for support. Instead, they’d ended up arguing.